The Cradle of California: How Monterey Bay Became a Seat of Power and Early American Influence

Monterey held California's fate before California knew it had one. Spain claimed the hill above the harbor in 1770 under Gaspar de Portolá, and the Presidio built there passed from Spanish to Mexican to American hands without a single shot fired when Commodore John Drake Sloat raised the flag over the Custom House on July 7, 1846. That Custom House — built by the Mexican government in 1827, collecting duties from foreign traders as Alta California's primary revenue — became California's first designated historic landmark. Three years later, delegates met on the upper floor of Colton Hall to write the state's first constitution, in a building Walter Colton had funded through fines on gamblers, cantina taxes, and convict labor. The Presidio still runs as an active Army post. These buildings didn't become museums by accident — they became museums because the decisions made inside them stuck.